


The Devil is in the Details

by WynterTwylight



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes (Downey films), Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle, The Flash (Comics), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Crossover, DIY science, Gen, Time Travel, a few puns, can you spot it, fireworks and other loud bullshit, harrison and caitlin brotp hard, living the college experience, mass spectrometry, right at the end, there's one halo reference, tinge of johnlock, undercover professors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-26
Updated: 2016-09-26
Packaged: 2018-08-17 09:40:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8139376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WynterTwylight/pseuds/WynterTwylight
Summary: Following the death of a beloved science professor at Baker University, everyone assumes that one of the students at the neighboring Addison College is to blame. After all, Addison had just destroyed Baker in football not hours prior, and students at Addison are very proud of it. But when Sherlock Holmes and John Watson are called to the scene chasing a hunch, things are predictably not quite as they seem. And if everyone's two favorite detectives have to go undercover to gather reconnaissance and solve the case, well, what could go wrong?





	

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to cardinalstar for listening to me blab about this fic AND the class I'm writing it for, along with beta-ing all 27 double spaced pages the night before it was do. <3 you!

1

“—I’m just saying, John, technology has entirely upended the way we read and look at literature. I’m not saying it’s inherently terrible or—”

            “—or what, Sherlock? We’ve been having the same conversation for five minutes. I know what you think, and you know what I think, so can we just have it settled? I just want to—”

            “Enjoy your coffee, yes, I know.”

            John Watson glares at Sherlock Holmes from across the small table they sit at in their favorite coffee shop. The other man returns it with a mocking glance. The only thing that keeps John from sending back a snappy retort is his own good sense. He takes a sip of his mocha to channel the urge into something that won’t encourage Sherlock to start _talking_ again.

            “Debates aren’t a bad thing, John.” Sherlock says quietly, before mirroring John and taking a drink of his own. “They help strengthen kinship bonds between humans because it increases our understanding of one another.”

            John opens his mouth to speak, an argument already rising in his throat, only to be cut off by ‘The Flight of the Bumblebee’ sounding from Sherlock’s pocket.

            “Sherlock Holmes,” the detective says. “Ah.” A pause. “At the local university?” A napkin is grabbed. “Baker?” A pen. “In front of the library… I see.” Scribbles. “I’ll be right there.” More scribbling. “Yes, John is with me.” Sherlock hangs up his phone, and suddenly gulps down _all_ of his coffee—and John is _sure_ that it hasn’t cooled enough for the average person to drink, let alone enjoy—and says, “There’s been a murder at Baker University! Looks like we have a new case!”

            John takes his coffee to go.

~

            Their Jane Doe had been strangled and dropped at the base of a tree, which also supports a hung version of Baker University’s mascot—a fighting goat named Barry—in the branches overhead. Sherlock is informed that Baker lost in the annual rival football game not two hours prior, and takes this into consideration as he examines the fallen figure.

            “Do we have an ID on her?” Sherlock asks as he slips on a pair of nitrile gloves and gets down on one knee. He’s looking at the rope marks around her throat when Anderson speaks.

“Yes. She’s Dr. Christina McGee, a professor of theoretical physics, but teaches basic chronodynamic theory as a supplement to her more advanced classes.”

“Chronodynamics? Like _time manipulation?”_ John exclaims. Sherlock whacks him in the arm, and John retaliates with a pointed glare that leaves the detective wary, though John doesn’t dare to bring it up again.

            “We’re thinking it’s just one of the students from Addison.” Anderson explains, They might have just gotten ahead of themselves and thought by murdering someone it would send a message.”

            “Anderson that’s ridiculous.” Sherlock touches the rope holding up the effigy of Barry and Anderson flinches when the goat starts swinging. Sherlock sets it in pendulous motion, and he would be lying if he says he isn’t enjoying Anderson’s reaction. “This could have been anyone, maybe _more_ than one. What makes you so… sure?”

            “There was a student by the name of Cisco Ramon. Claims he was walking back from a football watch party when he found her like this and called 911 immediately. Says there were a bunch of Addison students nearby when he walked up.” Anderson says.

            “Any chance I could interview Mr. Ramon?” Sherlock inquires, stilling Barry.

            “We already did,” Anderson replies, “If you want the transcripts, we have them.”

            “Email them to me.” Sherlock orders. Anderson nods. John turns away, thinking they’re through here, left to their own devices to look through old case files and wait for forensic data to come back, but then Anderson calls after him.

            “There’s one problem.” Anderson explains, “We keep interviewing the students around campus, and the stories we’re hearing aren’t matching up. We need to get to the source, find out what the truth is, and _then_ we can start accusing people. That’s why _you’re_ here.”

            Sherlock pauses, turns around, and beckons to John to follow him back to the scene. He’s thinking, hard, and when an index finger points to the sky, accompanied with an image of that genius light bulb over the top of one’s head, John can already guess what’s coming.

            “I possibly have a solution.” Sherlock starts thinking. Watson sees the wheels turning in his partner’s head, and before long, they are both on the same track. “Our Jane Doe—Dr. McGee was it? She was a professor, correct?” Anderson nods. “John and I will take over her class, and see what her students have to say about her.”

~

            The next day, Sherlock is dressed in a suit and tie, and John matches him.

            “My name is Dr. Holmes. Not ‘Professor Holmes’ or ‘Sherlock’, just Dr. Holmes.” Sherlock writes his name on the blackboard—and why college classrooms still have blackboards in the 21st century is beyond rational thought—in scrawling cursive. “My teaching assistant is Ormond Sacker, but you can called him Mr. Sacker or… something else honorific. Ask him.”

            John’s glare at hearing that, if bottled, could probably kill a small experimental rodent.

Sherlock does a double take at his partner’s expression, then continues, “On the class website you’ll find a new syllabus, and we _aren’t_ going over it in class. Read it on your own time.”

            A student in the front row raises their hand. A brave soul.

            “Dr. Holmes, this syllabus is nineteen pages long.” The student tells him.

            “Ah, I am glad you got through kindergarten and can count,” Sherlock says, ignores any further protest from the student, and lectures for the next two hours.

            Even John is nodding off by the end of it, and where the detective even _learned_ anything about basic chronodynamics is beyond him. John is supposed to be the science fiction nerd, and Sherlock is supposed to be the skeptic, _that’s_ how this works.

            “Sherlock!” Watson hisses once class is dismissed. “Ormond Sacker? Seriously? That name—”

“It’s Dr. Holmes, actually—”

“Oh cut the _crap,_ and a syllabus that’s nineteen pages? What were you thinking? And when did you have the _time_ to make _that?_ ”

            “I have to play the role,” Sherlock says like it’s obvious, “It’s always been a small dream of mine to be a professor, to teach young minds about the wonders of knowledge, and in this case physics, so I’m… prepared,” the detective explains. “Now, don’t you have papers to grade?”

            “Of course not!” Watson says, and then thinks on it. “You _didn’t_.”

            “Oh I did.”

            John pulls out his phone and checks his email…

…to see 160 submissions of 500-word essays about theoretical physics and construction of tachyons and other high speed particles. “You’re kidding. This is an introductory course!”

            “All the more reason to make sure they know what they’re getting into early. You’d best be getting to work now. Chop chop!” Sherlock pushes past him. John hopes that this case is solved by the time he really has to start grading those papers.

            “And what are _you_ going to do?” John asks.

            “Tend to my pipe.”

            Sherlock says no more, and heads to the only place on campus that allows smoking. He doesn’t have cigarettes like the rest of the students he finds under the flagpole out on the quad, but his pipe doesn’t exactly raise much attention.

            “—I knew her, Dr. McGee. She was my PI in the lab I work in,” there are mumbles of approval from the surrounding students, and _that_ grabs Sherlock’s attention. “She’d just gotten tenure over the summer too.”

            “Harrison…” One of the other students says, putting a hand on ‘Harrison’s’ shoulder. They don’t know what else to say. “If it helps, at all, I was around in the student center when it happened.”

            Sherlock inhales, and walks a little closer.

            “There was a bang,” The student continues, “and then another bang. There were these, odd firework-like explosions going off in front of the student center. They weren’t violent, just… pretty. Like big sparklers. They went off for around five minutes, and then the commotion about Dr. McGee spread.”

            And _that_ really piques Sherlock’s interest. He’d read that Cisco Ramon had _also_ heard several bangs and pops at the time of the murder.

            Sherlock decides he needs to talk to Harrison and the other student—Caitlin is it?— _immediately_.

 

2

“John!” Sherlock bursts through the doors of their on-campus apartment—because Sherlock thinks it necessary they stay in one in order to _live the college experience_ —with Caitlin and Harrison in tow. To say that John’s papers—and he had printed _all_ of those essays off because he _hates_ editing on computer screens—fly everywhere would be a massive understatement. “We are—”

“—Sherlock! What are you—”

“—going on a field trip!” The detective finishes. He sees John’s anger and ignores it, pressing on with the case at hand. “Meet Harrison Wells and Caitlin Snow, both of which have either connections to the victim _or_ were present at the time of the murder.”

“Why did you bring them _here?”_ John all but shouts, “You need to bring them to the police! Not to me!”

“There’s no time! Get your bag, we have to get to the chemistry labs _immediately!”_

John has always been one for Sherlock Holmes and his undying eccentrics, but sometimes the man is just _ludicrous._ But for the 387th time in John Watson’s life, he goes along with it and tries not to ask too many questions.

“Here we go again,” John mumbles and grabs his bag, preparing to follow the three out the door, which is _still_ open.

“Did you say something, John?”

“Nothing.” John says, and the four begin the trek to the chemistry labs.

~

The big hunch that Sherlock is chasing, John soon discovers, is based off of Caitlin’s recollection of odd explosions and Harrison’s knowledge of the inventories of the chemistry labs.

“What kind of computer do you need?” Sherlock shoves Harrison through the door.

“Mac, PC, anything that’s connected to the network in this building. The research labs are on a separate server. I just need to get into that server.” Harrison answers.

            They’re in an office within minutes and Harrison is typing, no, _hacking,_ away at the computer keys, with Caitlin staring at him like he’s a god. John is impressed, and Sherlock just seems bored.

            “I’m in!” Harrison says fifteen minutes later, and an inventory screen pops up, organized by item alphabetically. After a little more clicking, Harrison has the inventories ordered by lab.

            “Ms. Snow, you said that you saw fireworks that were reminiscent of sparklers, correct?” Sherlock asks. She nods. “Mr. Wells, see if any labs ordered magnesium recently, potassium nitrate, aluminum, nitrocellulose—”

            “I’ve got a match,” Harrison says, and Sherlock shuts up. “The last order from the Thawne Lab, fourth floor. There is an order that had to go through management that contains a large quantity of magnesium, barium nitrate, copper, dextrin, and charcoal—”

            “—all ingredients in fireworks, most commonly _sparklers_ ,” Sherlock nods, and he notices that Caitlin pales.

            “Even if the order is from the Thawne Lab, we can’t be sure that one of the scientists there is responsible for the fireworks,” Caitlin says.

Sherlock continues, “But those ingredients are consistent with small explosives, and someone could, theoretically, build quite the—John I’ve got it!”

            “What?” John asks.

            “I’ll explain everything later, but we have to act _now_ ,” Sherlock says, and as usual, John is lost, but even though _he_ is used to being lost on the train that _is_ Sherlock Holmes, he can’t even begin to imagine what Harrison and Caitlin are going through. “Mr. Wells, Ms. Snow, do you know where the Thawne Lab is?”

            “I do,” Caitlin swallows, takes a deep breath. “And I have a key.”

 

3

            “How did you even get _in_ to the Thawne Lab?” Harrison is asking Caitlin excitedly as they climb up seven flights of steps. The elevators will only take them back to the first floor at this time of night, leaving the stairs as the only option.

            “I have a working knowledge of particle physics, specifically _high energy_ particle physics. He’s aiming to build an accelerator. I offered my assistance, and after I submitted my resume he gave me a position,” Caitlin explains routinely. Harrison realizes he’s not the first person to question her.

            “Dr. McGee had an idea for a tachyon prototype, but we were nowhere close at implementing it, even theoretical models were in early stages of experimentation, but given time, if the McGee Lab and the Thawne Lab ever partnered—” Harrison begins.

            “—we could change physics as we know it!” Caitlin finishes.

            “The future will be here _faster_ than we think,” Harrison says, suppressing a laugh.

            “Ah!” Caitlin doesn’t even try to hold back her own laughter, “Good one.”

 _Ah, young nerds,_ John thinks with a smile.

“We’re just in time too. Here’s the lab,” Caitlin whips out her personal key to the Thawne Lab, and slides it into the lock, turns it slowly, and lets the group in. “If anyone asks, we’re looking at the renders of the simulations I started running earlier today.”

The rest of the group nods.

“Inventory is over here,” Caitlin leads them to a room that’s separate from the main part of the lab that contains several shelves that make up a whole wall’s worth of chemicals. However, she stops through letting them through the door of the room. “Now, I’m not jumping to conclusions, but if these chemicals are... missing, does that mean I’m in trouble?”

“Only if you’re an accomplice to the murder, Ms. Snow,” Sherlock answers, and moves forward. She stops him again.

“How do I know you aren’t going to turn me in on default?” Caitlin inquires.

“You’re starting to sound guilty. I’d be careful what I said next if I were you,” Sherlock moves forward again, and she lets him by. “But, for the record, something tells me the police won’t be interested in arresting you if you helped them solve the case.”

Harrison understands and realization hits Caitlin’s face as well.

John is pissed.

“Wait, you’re a cop?” Caitlin asks.

“They’re _badges?”_ Harrison echoes.

“Sherlock!” John hisses.

“It’s Dr. Holmes—”

“We weren’t supposed to tell them!” John continues, “That’s what _undercover_ means you _numbskull_!”

“But really, you’re not actually a professor?” Caitlin almost sounds disappointed. Sherlock can’t blame her. “And you’re not actually a TA?”

“Sherlock—” John warns.

“I’m a consulting detective, he’s an assistant-surgeon-turned-assistant-consulting-detective. His name is also _Dr._ Watson, not Ormond Sacker,” Sherlock explains.

John is _absolutely_ going to talk about the concept of _discretion_ with the detective later. But now, Harrison and Caitlin are staring at them.

“One second,” Caitlin holds up a finger and a moment later is dragging Harrison a little ways away. They huddle briefly, discussing the pros and cons of sticking around, of entertaining Sherlock and John by helping with their case, and then return to the others,

“We—” Harrison gestures between Caitlin and himself, “—are on board helping, still, as long as you _tell us everything._ ”

“I’m not sure that’s wise—” Sherlock says.

“—we won’t be much help if we don’t know the little stuff, and if I recall, the devil _is_ in the details. So you would best start talking, or _we_ —” Caitlin gestures between them this time, “—are walking,” She argues back, crossing her arms. John has to hand it to her. She has guts.

“Fine,” Sherlock gives in, “John, help me explain.”

John smiles, “Of course.”

Sherlock tells them _all of it._

When he’s finished talking about the murder, about the reason John and he went undercover, and how the essays John has been grading are actually for completion and _not_ a grade, the two students are understandably a little dumbfounded.

“Alright, I’ll look through the chemicals.” Caitlin assigns. “Harrison, do some snooping and see if you can find anything else that might raise… red flags.”

Harrison nods, and walks off.

“They’re almost making this _too_ easy,” John says quietly, body leaning towards the detective.

“Murder is never easy, John,” Sherlock corrects, “there is something else here, something we are missing…”

            “The chemicals _are_ missing,” Caitlin returns, lab notebook in hand and a pen in her hair, “The bottles aren’t here, and more importantly, I don’t know _where_ they are.”

            “Umm hey guys?” Harrison calls from around the corner. “You’ll want to see this.”

            Harrison, when everyone is gathered closer to him, isn’t touching the rope that’s on the floor, but it’s clear that it’s the same rope used to hang Barry _and_ murder Dr. McGee. Sherlock’s looking down at it like it’s poison, and then he’s on the ground collecting a sample and putting it into a bag—because the man _has_ a sample collection bag in his trench coat, of course.

“Ms. Snow, email Dr. Thawne. I want to speak with him.” Sherlock orders. Caitlin gulps, but agrees, pulling out her phone and typing away. A few seconds after sending, she gets an automatic reply. Caitlin holds her phone up to Sherlock’s face, and he reads the text on the screen carefully.

 

_Thank you for emailing me. My responses may come slower due to a sudden family emergency. A distant relative has sustained a severe injury and I must attend to him in the hospital. I am not sure when I will return, your patience is appreciated._

_-E.T._

“Well, that’s unfortunate.” Sherlock says, rubbing his temples, “but awfully convenient.”

“And odd, given that Dr. Thawne is in the building and coming this way.” Caitlin says, voice distant and eyes wide.

“What?” Harrison spits out metaphorical coffee.

“We can talk to him then!” Caitlin suggests.

“On no, _we_ have to hide!” Sherlock says.

“Dr. Thawne is a good man, we _don’t_ have to hide from him!” Caitlin argues.

“The less people know the better, and showing up this late isn’t a good sign, especially when he is supposed to be helping a ‘distant relative’.” Sherlock has the audacity to add air quotes, and Caitlin wants to fuss again, but Dr. Thawne’s footsteps, quiet as they may be, are getting closer. Caitlin knows them well enough.

“Where on earth do you expect us to hide?” Caitlin says, “This lab is an open space! A shared space! As in, _there aren’t places_ to _hide!”_

“The chemical closet.” John suggests. “We can all fit in there, as long as the rest of us are willing to get cozy.”

“Well, we don’t have much of a choice, now do we?” Sherlock snaps back, and shuffles everyone towards the closet.

~

            Dr. Eobard Thawne, having just stepped out onto the hallway to his lab—and those stairs _really_ are a pain, but business is business—sees that the lights are already on. It wouldn’t be much of a concern except that the lights on this floor are _automatic._

            Eobard is skeptical, cautious, anticipating _every_ outcome as he trudges forward. There are other labs up here besides his own, and he knows he isn’t the only primary investigator that checks on sample runs and simulation results at 2 AM in the morning. He clutches the bag of empty bottles closer to him, still keeping a level of carefulness as his shoes quietly hit the special-order floor the department had reinstalled just last year.

            However, what _does_ make him step back and reach for a blunt object, just in case, is the fact that his lab not only had its lights on, but the door is _unlocked._

            _No one_ leaves _his_ lab unlocked. It is a cardinal rule, something he had drilled into every graduate student and undergrad that had ever been taken under his wing. There were even _signs,_ and if someone is here… it could mean…

            He sighs, and turns around.

            Being here would present too much of a risk, not with the recent death on campus.

            Dr. Eobard Thawne prays it’s just one of his grad students working overtime, and walks away, trudges down the stairs, and leaves the lab building, promising to put the bottles back later. As far as he knows, Thawne Lab isn’t being investigated.

            Yet.

~

            “Caitlin, get off my foot!”

            “Harrison, shut up or he will hear us!”

            “Would the two of you _stop talking.”_

            “John no one asked your opinion!” Sherlock’s voice pierces their whispers, “And the two of you, shut up.” Sherlock can practically _hear_ the eye rolls in the sighs of the others trapped with him.

            Then the footsteps they’re hearing stop, and they get farther and farther away, finally ending with the main lab door being opened and closed, again.

            They remain in the closet for another heart-stopping five minutes before they remove themselves from its confines. It is stuffy and warm, too much for comfort, and Sherlock is all too happy to escape the restriction of being in a small space with John and two college students. He had been through worse, but he had also been through a _lot_ better.

            “We have to leave,” Sherlock announces not a minute later. He has his phone in one hand and the other on the doorknob. “Now.”

            “Care to explain?” John dares, following Sherlock out the door and beckoning to Caitlin and Harrison.

            Sherlock turns his phone around, and shows a video—taken only minutes ago—of Dr. Thawne walking through the door of the lab, looking around, and then walking right back out again. John would have scolded Sherlock for leaving his phone in such an obvious place, but given that Dr. Thawne hadn’t looked in the direction of the camera, John hopes they are all safe, and lets him off the hook _this_ time.

            Sherlock looks at the three of them, “ _We_ need to find out what’s in that bag. If it’s what I’m thinking it is, Dr. Thawne has some explaining to do.”

~

Dr. Eobard Thawne enters his lab early in the morning, and as expected, the lights are _off_ when he arrives. He replaces the chemical bottles back on the shelf carefully. The last thing he needs is Caitlin or another undergrad doing inventory early and finding out that everything isn’t accounted for.

“Good,” he says to no one but himself, and gets to work at writing his book, _The Dangers of Technology: Why the Secret to our Future Lies in our Past._

            He still has several hours before he needs to be back ‘taking care of his dear cousin Eddie’, but until then, he needs to peck out another chapter, and get to work. With Dr. McGee dead, he has a short window of time before someone else figures out what Dr. Thawne is up to. He just needs to finish a few things before any bright individual starts asking questions.

            He would hate to hurt anyone else.

 

4

It’s later the next day, when John returns to the apartment to see Sherlock and Harrison tinkering away at a contraption in the middle of the room that’s taking up _all_ the free space. John can’t even get to his bed without some creative jumping.

            “Sherlock! What the _hell_ are you _doing?”_

            “Testing evidence!” The detective has a smaller apparatus in gloved hands, and sticks it into part of the machine on the floor. “We have the two samples of rope, one from the crime scene, and another from Thawne lab, and if we use separation techniques involving ionization and vaporization following by strong electromagnetic fields—”

            John wants to hit something, “You built a _mass spectrometer_ in our apartment _?”_

            “Give Mr. Wells some credit. It’s _his_ senior project, I just helped him start and finish it.” Sherlock flicks a switch, and takes off his gloves while Harrison scribbles something in a coffee-stained notebook.

            “Do you have any idea how dangerous this is?” John exclaims, still wanting to hit something. Maybe Sherlock. Maybe Harrison’s notebook. _Something._

            “A little, yes, but the probabilities—”

            “Are not worth me sticking around to find out about. I’ll be in the library.”

            “You have more essays to grade, John.” Sherlock taps his phone.

            “If you would have them actually print them off it would be a _lot_ easier for me.”

            “But easy isn’t fun, John.”

            “Shut _up_ , Sherlock.” John slams the door when he leaves.

~

            _There’s a lot of noise around him, and lots of people. There is screaming, and yelling, all horrifying and disconcerting and—_

“John.” A soft voice arouses the doctor from his slumber. “Wake up, John. I need you.”

            John’s eyes flutter open, and he leans over from the top bunk and looks down to see Sherlock Holmes’ face, along with Caitlin’s and Harrison’s as well.

            “What is it? It’s what, 4 AM?” John says. He had spent the majority of the day keeping up the ruse as Dr. Holmes’ TA. He had two recitations to teach, and a lab class to run, in addition to _all of the essays_ Sherlock had assigned. They need to hurry up and solve this case before John goes insane.

            “Mr. Wells accessed the security cameras in the Thawne Lab.” Sherlock explains, “Not _only_ is that bag filled with the bottles of the missing chemicals, but Dr. Thawne is there now _and_ he’s now working on writing _something,_ ” Sherlock shows John the direct feed from the cameras, and Caitlin speaks up.

            “It’s probably his book,” Caitlin says, “He’s been writing it since before I was employed in his lab. And he carries all those notebooks with him all the time. I don’t even know if he’s typed a word of it.”

            “What’s it about?” Sherlock asks, turning on the overhead light and blinding John, who jumps up and hits his head on the slanted tile ceiling above him. Sherlock ignores his yelp of pain.

            “He has a long time theory that technology, specifically computers and phones and such, have changed the way we write and view information, the way we research, and more importantly, how we learn,” Caitlin explains, “It might be important, but one of his biggest motivations for creating tachyons—particles that can move faster than light speed—is based off the notion that _if_ something can approach light speed, that time can be crossed in the same way that _we_ cross space.”

            “He thinks he can invent time travel,” John says, voice still drowsy but shocked nonetheless.

            “Yes! He believes—and this is where he gets a little ‘kooky’—that he wasn’t born in the right time, that the 21st Century isn’t his ‘home’. He tells me, and the other students, how much he wants to travel back, to a place where technology doesn’t rule our lives. Where he can live in peace and be free from the cyber culture that we are a part of now,” Caitlin seems a little ashamed to explain what her mentor told her, but it triggers something in Harrison’s mind, “He was determined to harness this time’s technology, to immerse himself in it for _fifteen_ years—that was his self-imposed deadline—hoping that at the end of that time period, he could go ‘home’.”

            “And how long until those fifteen years are up?” Sherlock asks.

            “Next month, actually,” Caitlin explains.

            “You’re an undergrad researcher for a mad scientist,” Harrison jokes, “but in all seriousness, Dr. McGee was _close_ to doing that. I don’t know why he would have killed her—”

“—Dr. Thawne didn’t _kill_ anyone,” Caitlin defends.

“Just hear me out, theoretical physicist to theoretical physicist,” Harrison continues.

Caitlin takes a breath, “Then why would Dr. Thawne kill her when she had the brain and the tech to _help_ him. Even if… his means for changing the future are a little… selfish and _crazy._ ”

            “Unless she had something he needed, and she wasn’t willing to give it to him,” Sherlock pipes up, entering the conversation again. He holds out the phone, the one with the direct feed of Thawne Lab. On the screen, Dr. Thawne has pages and pages of handwritten notes, with equations and text that’s unreadable from the camera, but the object sitting in the middle of them peaks Harrison’s interest.

            “That _bastard!”_ Harrison shouts, “That’s Dr. McGee’s tachyon prototype! He _built it!_ That’s her design! I have the notes right here!” He flips through his lab notebook, and sure enough, the prototype designs are there. “I have the exact schematics on my computer, signed and dated by her when I asked to be on the team to build it!”

            Sherlock smiles. “And that, Mr. Wells, is _exactly_ what we need to solve this case. John? Call Anderson. Tell him I’ve solved it.”

            “You know how to prove he’s the killer?” Harrison asks warily.

            “Everything just clicked,” Sherlock says, “I’ll explain soon.”

            Caitlin looks like she’s about to throw up. This is all moving too fast. John nods, and picks up his phone.

            “One more thing,” Sherlock adds. John looks at him, waiting for instruction, “Ask Anderson to check for any of his relatives in the hospital recently, I want to know if _any_ of what we know about our mad scientist is true.”

            “And what about Dr. Thawne?” Caitlin gestures to the screen, where he is still soldering and tampering with the prototype.

            “We will keep an eye on him,” Sherlock says, “If he goes on the move, we can just meet him at the door.”

 

5

As it turns out, they do meet Dr. Thawne at the door. He’s standing in cuffs—in a finely tailored suit of all things to wear—charged with stealing patented designs from a dead woman, and that’s only the beginning.

            “You can’t prove I killed her!” Eobard screams.

            “Who said anything about killing her?” Sherlock asks. Eobard pales and stops moving around. “But now that you bring it up…”

            Sherlock has a box in his hands, filled with a whole host of objects. John smiles from the small crowd of police and few passerby. This is arguably his favorite part of every case, mainly because he and Sherlock are out of danger of dying… most of the time.

            “Dr. Eobard Thawne,” Sherlock holds up a diploma, _Thawne’s_ diploma, “Professor of theoretical physics at Baker University and the experimental field of chronodynamics. In other words, Dr. Thawne studies the manipulation and dynamics of time itself, for the purposes of not only _understanding_ time, but with the aims of travelling through it. He believes that if one approaches light speed, time can be crossed the same way as space.”

            Murmurs of skepticism make themselves known in the crowd, but no one objects.

            “Dr. Christina McGee,” Sherlock holds up a second diploma, and this one belongs to Dr. McGee, “Professor of theoretical physics who _also_ focuses on chronodynamics. She submitted a patent for a tachyon prototype, a model that could enable a particle to go _faster_ than the speed of light. Shortly after, she received tenure at Baker University, much to the chagrin of _other_ professors in the running for tenure against her. One of these professors is Dr. Thawne.” The professor in question swallows. “Now, Dr. Thawne is an interesting person. Do you care to explain _why_ you’re trying to invent time travel? Any time in particular you want to visit?”

            “The past, where people didn’t _arrest_ me because of technological innovation!” Eobard says.

            “You stole those plans after she died!” Harrison shouts.

            “Stop talking, _Wells,_ ” Eobard hisses, “You know, there’s a reason I rejected your application,” Harrison gulps, “Your ability to jump to ridiculous conclusions with little merit just proves your incompetence in a _real_ scientific situation. Dr. McGee only hired you because you didn’t get into _my_ lab.”

            “Hey! You shut up.” Anderson orders, “Sherlock, go on. I’ll keep this one in check.”

            Sherlock nods, and goes on. “You see, Dr. Thawne wasn’t interested in the future, interested in technology. After all, why would he be when all of his lab notes are on paper and he refuses to own a cell phone? The only reason he has email is because it’s required by the faculty at Baker University. And speaking of email, how is your distant relative doing?”

            “ _Eddie,_ is doing fine.” Eobard spits out. “His recovery is proving successful.”

            “Ah!” Sherlock shouts. “Wrong! Your dear cousin Eddie Thawne was never _in_ the hospital. His medical records show no recent visits, along with the rest of your family.”

            “You had a warrant to _search my records?”_ Eobard exclaims, shoving back against Anderson and failing.

            “Don’t make me tase you, this is entertaining.” Anderson says.

            Eobard snarls.

            Sherlock is amused, “We got warrants for _lots_ of things. Like searching your lab, officially, and finding an all too recent order of chemicals including magnesium, barium nitrate, copper, dextrin, and charcoal, all chemicals used in making homegrown explosives, or… _fireworks._ Ms. Snow, at the time of the murder, what did you hear?” Sherlock asks.

            “A bang, and some other loud pops, and some bright lights in front of the student center. Almost like large sparklers.” Caitlin answers, not looking at her mentor. She can’t, not when she’s forced to betray him like this.

            “Exactly, and if we are to look through the inventory of all of the labs,” Sherlock removes a stack of printed off inventory lists, highlighted and flagged, and hands them to Lestrade, who looks through them eagerly, “Thawne Lab, run by Dr. Thawne himself, is the only lab that ordered large enough quantities to make such fireworks. To make it worse, when his lab was searched, the same rope that was used to strangle Dr. McGee _and_ hang the effigy of Barry the fighting goat was found in Thawne’s lab. After samples of both the rope found at the scene of the crime _and_ that found in the lab were analyzed using mass spectrometry, the residue on both ropes had chemicals that were those consistent with firework construction. Did you know, Dr. Thawne, that constructing fireworks is incredibly illegal? That’s two charges for you now.”

            “You can’t _prove_ that.” Eobard retorts.

            “I’d best be following the ‘you have a right to remain silent’ option if I were you.” Sherlock suggests, “Because your notes,” Sherlock takes out one of Eobard’s _many_ notebooks, “have the _exact_ same ratio of explosive chemicals on them as to those found at the scene of the crime. So, either someone stole your notes and covered them in explosive residue, or… something is _fishy_ here. I wouldn’t be too firm in my accusations, however, except that there is recorded video of you returning the bottles that held those chemicals to your own lab. Dr. Thawne, I would say that’s just _sloppy._ ”

            Eobard cringes.

            “But no,” Sherlock says a little bit louder before Eobard can interrupt, “the real ticket is what Harrison said before, you took Dr. McGee’s designs for her prototype, and actually made your own,” Sherlock pulls out printed off schematics taken from Dr. McGee’s research computer, and then holds them up next to the model they found in Dr. Thawne’s lab upon his arrest. There are ooohs and ahhhhs from the surrounding crowd. They’re drawn more attention now, “I think, but this might be just a hunch, that you were jealous that she got tenure for something _you_ were working on, and that she was building it _better_ than you. Caitlin says you had a fifteen-year deadline before you gave up on researching tachyons and chronodynamics. That deadline started approaching, and _you_ didn’t know what to do. So you killed her, took her progress, said you would be gone for a while, and hermit-crabbed yourself away to build the prototype and finish your book, your _legacy_. And if the prototype worked, you were going to go all in on _attempting_ time travel, weren’t you?”

            “Dr. McGee didn’t know what she was doing! She didn’t know how _close_ she was. If she just _listened to me_ nobody would have had to have gotten hurt!” Eobard yells, then clams up, realizing what he just confessed to.

            “Oh no, Dr. Thawne, do go on.” Anderson urges.

            Eobard waits, but then speaks, “Fine. I killed the bitch. She and her stupid tachyon prototype were supposed to change the world, push humanity towards the future and me, after being surrounded by all this “future” talk, after dealing with all the competition associated with tenure, all the talk about new technologies, and the increasing _hatred_ all the other science professors had towards me for not adopting all the latest tech, well, I was really getting _sick of it._ You see, fifteen years ago, I realized if I could go back in time, before all these stupid futuristic metal and copper lined devices took over our lives, and our minds, and changed our brains, well, I would.

            “ _Fifteen years ago_ I saw what this world would become. The first hints of the monster that is modern technology were starting to rear their ugly heads. People around me were already writing differently and constructing their papers in different ways. My colleagues weren’t _writing_ anymore, they were typing, and everyone else was doing it too. Stupid computer worship. It drove me _nuts_ then and it drives me _nuts_ now _._

            “So yes, after traveling the country and lecturing about these things, that technology wasn’t changing our society for the better, that it was really just turning us into a hive mind of technology-oriented zombies, I saw that no one cared and no one listened. _That_ is when I started my book. It was what I was going to leave behind when I finally _did_ invent time travel and _used_ it.

            “Tina, now, _Tina_ was the biggest proponent of technology I knew. She could change the world, and the way she planned on using that prototype, well, it was _not_ going to change the world for the better. If I was stuck here, it wasn’t going to be one in which _she_ was going to take all the glory, all the success. She was going to make a tachyon and _ruin the world with it._ So yeah, I waited until the rival—stupid Addison College—was playing us, made some explosives to distract all the technology-infused millennials on this god-forsaken campus, and while they were busy tweeting and texting and Facebooking my little fireworks show, Tina was dying, and no one helped her because no one was paying attention to her. It was more of an experiment, really, to see if anyone would notice their precious professor dying while something else noteworthy was going on. Kids these days don’t _pay attention._ And Barry? The goat? Metaphorically killing him was just a way to illustrate how much I _hate_ this university and what it stands for.”

            Eobard spits, takes a breath, and puts his chin high.

            “Dr. Thawne, you’re about to go away for a long time.” Anderson declares.

            Eobard hardly cares. “At least prison isn’t filled with technology zombies.” He says.

            “Yeah, you can read all the textbooks you want, and write a few mean sentences of your crazy theories on those walls, why don’t you?” Anderson says, “You can even close your eyes and pretend it’s the 1800s.”

~

            “I can’t believe he betrayed me like that.” Caitlin is crying after they drag Eobard away, and Harrison is holding her. “And Harrison, I’m glad he didn’t accept you into his lab. You deserve better.”

            “So do you. I’m sure that whoever takes over Dr. McGee’s lab would be happy to have you join up with us.”

            “They are actually talking about merging the two under a new primary investigator. Dr. Martin Stein? Do you know of him?” Sherlock walks over to them, and sees both of their faces light up.

            “ _The_ Martin Stein?” They both say in unison. Caitlin’s tears are forgotten, and Harrison is pointing at someone behind Sherlock. “That’s him!”

            “Well, hello to you too.” Dr. Stein greets them, “It looks like my head researchers are… enthusiastic enough for my tastes.” He shakes their hands, and Sherlock leaves the two of them with a nod, and meets up with John who is still staring after where Eobard left them.

            “Another success!” Sherlock says, clapping John on the back. When the other man says nothing, Sherlock asks, “What are you thinking about so deeply?”

            “How exactly you managed to _make_ a mass spectrometer in our room.” John laughs.

            “Once you know how they work, it’s really quite easy…” Sherlock moves easily into a lecture, and John _thinks_ about stopping him, telling him _not_ to talk about it, but then, with all that has happened over the last few days, John just _listens._ Frankly, he’s just too tired, and maybe, in that moment, when Sherlock is talking about something so passionately, so _excitedly,_ John can’t help but smile a little bit, and maybe, Sherlock can’t help but smile back. 

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, guys, I actually had to write this for a class at my college, called Literature in a Digital Age (Or Lit Digits as I call it since the full name is kind of a tongue twister). Haven't gotten my grade back yet, but we will see! 
> 
> In the class I'm taking, we talk about how much technology has changed the way we view and perceive information as a collective. My task, was to address that issue, through... Sherlock Holmes fan fiction (it was an option!). We also had talked about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's stories through the ages anyways, so it was easy to link that to the class. Adding in the characters from The Flash came unexpected, but we write about what we know, right? But the audience for this, is you guys. People who love the characters that are found in the Sherlock canon but want more of them in different situations that people would _never_ find in canon. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is _not_ about to write a Sherlock/Flash crossover AU because back then there wasn't an audience for it, and of course it didn't exist! So that was my job, to fill in that gap when the idea was placed in my mind to do such a thing. 
> 
> From there, my strategy was to take the stereotypical detective story plotline and shape it to reflect the class I'm taking. Adding in a few characters from The Flash started as a source for names--since OC names are hard when you don't have a ton of time--that then grew into being the characters, and taking over 50% of the story. I tried to write it so someone in the Sherlock fandom could read it without having knowledge of The Flash canon--aka _my professor_. I did a little research in notes of past science classes to remember how mass spectrometry works, and while yes, it _is_ possible to build a mass spectrometer, it's only possible for Sherlock to build it in that short of a time frame.
> 
> Writing the scene when Sherlock is teaching the class with John Watson/Ormond Sacker (Ormond was John Watson's original name before Doyle came up with, well, John Watson) was meant to be a drag on the college experience. Before the fic got dramatic, I wanted to put in some humour on how ridiculous introductory courses in big lecture halls can be. At least at my university, introductory science courses make it terrible to drive you away if you don't want to put in ridiculous amounts of work. So this is me making fun of that because I have to cope somehow, right? *buzzes uncomfortably*
> 
> Anyways, thanks for reading, and all comments are totally appreciated! 
> 
> ＼(^o^)／


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